Every day we have class from 1:30 to 3:00pm. Every day we file into our classroom, take our seats, and listen to experts talk about various, hopefully interesting topics. Every day at approximately 2:54pm, great gusts of wind blow through the hallways. They slam the windows and doors shut, waking up those who didn’t order coffee after lunch and trapping us inside our classrooms. Loose leaves of notebook paper fly from our desks and fall to the floor, generally right in front of our speaker’s feet. We awkwardly scramble to pick them up, return to our chairs, and try to atone [View Full Entry]

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I have removed myself to the hallway while my roommate talks to her boyfriend on Skype. Our hotel has a sitting area that overlooks an indoor patio and coy pond, and it’s a nice change of scenery from the four empty walls of our room. All of the walls in our room are white, but they’re slightly different colors of white. Now that I’ve been here a while, I realize it’s completely possible that the painters ran out of white paint three different times. Today was our third day of classes at ISA. Bruce’s classes, Modern Cuba and The Socialist Experiment, [View Full Entry]

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It’s the afternoon of my fifteenth day in Cuba, and I’m writing my first blog entry from the floor of our hotel room in Havana. I’m rooming with my friend Sarah, and we’ve covered the chairs, desk, and beds with our drying laundry. We don’t have access to a washing machine, so this afternoon we dumped all our dirty clothes in the bath tub and went to work. The Cuban sun is hot enough to dry everything in an hour, so maybe I will have a place to sit by the time I’m finished writing this. We spent the last ten [View Full Entry]

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The day started with breakfast at 7am. I had oatmeal. It was decent. At 8:30 we left on our morning walk. We looked for birds and insects, and Delfin pointed out several plants. He made me a bracelet out of one of them. I’m slightly enamored. At one point Delfin was showing us a giant flower petal or leaf thast can hold water (tree frogs lay their eggs in these so the tadpoles hatch in the rainwater that collects). He pointed out the rather big spider (2 inches across) on the leaf, but for whatever reason didn’t see the HUGE black [View Full Entry]

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This morning we boarded a small plane at the Quito National Airport at 10:10. An hour later, we were disembarking in Coca, a small town in the eastern part of the country. We took cabs to a hotel in Coca where we met our guide for our next adventure: Delfin. Delfin is from a remonte Amazon community and speaks fluent English, Spanish, and Quechua. With Delfin, we got into a 60-foot, 20-passenger motorized canoe. We motored up the Napo River (in the Amazon basin) for two and a half hours, until we arrived at the Yachana Lodge. Along the way we [View Full Entry]

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This morning we moved our bags from the Hotel Real Audiencia in Old Town to Café Cultura in New Town. The contrast between the two parts of town is intense and reflected in the differences between the two hotels. Café Cultura is significantly more expensive and trendy. They also try to take more of your money (internet, laundry, etc.). I guess their rates are minimal compared to the U.S. It’s all relative. After we dropped off our bags, we took a taxi to the bottom of the Telerifico. The Telerifico is a gondola system that takes groups of six people up [View Full Entry]

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Today we had more greasy omelets and toast at the upstairs restaurant and then walked a few blocks to the Museo de la Ciudad. The Museo de la Ciudad is a history museum. The exhibits are designed to be walked through in chronological order. You start in the pre-Columbian era and end in the 20th century. We had an English-speaking guide give us a tour for $4.00. It was a cool place—the building was a Catholic hospital for centuries. It’s only been a museum since 1988. After the tour we sat in the courtyard (which was beautiful) and relaxed over coffee [View Full Entry]

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Today we started the morning at about 8:45 with greasy omelettes at the upstairs restaurant. ALthough the hotel's eggs weren't gourmet, its restaurant had a great view of the city. After breakfast we went to the Museo Franciscano. We got a too-fast but detailed tour from one of the museum guides. He told us about 17th and 16th century painting techniques and told us some of the legends behind the art. It was a cool museum, and I would have liked to go back inside after the tour. However, the route ends outside the church (on purpose, I think—so you have [View Full Entry]

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Our cab picked us up in Seattle at 4:00am today. Eighteen hours later we are finally here. Our flights were uneventful but long. A mini-bus met us at the Quito airport and delivered us here, to the Hotel Real Audiencia. On the ride here we passed lots of little storefronts (all closed, now) that reminded me very much of Tenerife. I found myself beginning to feel very happy--I think I forgot how much I love Latinoamerica. The altitude difference is pretty obvious. I feel a little short of breath and it seems like there's too much pressure on my ears--it' like [View Full Entry]

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